Shookyokuteki
by antidoesfanfiction
Summary: “This is insane.” “I’m here to protect you.” He says back. “You say that about everyone. No one should care if you‘re longing.” “I don’t know the meaning of that.” “Yes, you do."
1. Prologue

With a small hint of a reluctant thought in the back of her mind, she reached to touch his arm. Surprisingly, his skin wasn't as freezing as it looked.

"This is insane."

"I'm here to protect you." He says back.

"You say that about everyone. No one should care if you 're longing."

"I don't know the meaning of that."

"Yes, you do. Now you're lying to me Gaara." She sighs, some of her chakra slowly sifting from her body.

"Stop!" he hisses, breaking his arm away from her, "Azami, don't."

"You're afraid, aren't you?"

"I don't know the meaning of that."

"Why?"

He really wanted to know what she meant by that. "Why?" Why did she care anyway?

"You insist upon persuading me that I have any feeling, but you don't know me."

"You're secluding."

Just then, she feels it. She feels the rupture in the pit of her stomach. All of her senses, threatening to go weak. She has to get away from him…Can't be near him any longer. No one's seen her like this. It's because no one knows.

"Gaar, I…I have to go. I have to get out of here." She says with little control over her failing voice.

Glancing at her quickly, Gaara sees the scar on her face—it's flaring up and turning dark red, almost like blood.

"What's—"

Before she could hear what he was to ask, Azami let out a deafening moan, dashed for a tree branch and disappeared. He wanted to go after her, but he knew he couldn't. Not with so much doubt. All of the doubt in his mind weighed down everything he thought could be right.

And he longed for her, he did. But of course he knew it was never to be. He had no room to feel envy, intimacy. He couldn't suffocate his mind with thoughts of love, a family; just nothing, yet protection. That was his purpose.

"_Protect the village, and then you die." _He thought often to himself.

Even after his internal reform and change for the better, Gaara still felt dead inside. His mind was his own prison and he knew not to share that with anyone.

But what was he to do when that one person could actually pry their way inside?


	2. Chapter 1

**If you wanna check out what my 3 new character's look like, pm me.**

**(Don't forget to review)**

**Shookyokuteki- negative (lacking positive feeling)**

She arose in bed with such a fruitless look in her eyes—and yet she felt even the same.

"Mom, I told you I woke her up an _hour _ago!" her sister Keiko complained from downstairs.

"Are you sure she's up? Did she actually move when you shook her?" their mother, Kyoko interrogated in her exasperated voice.

"Yes!" Keiko grunted, rolling her eyes.

"Well check again, just to be sure." Kyoko sighed, waving her younger of two daughters away.

"Azami, you awake?!" her sister Keiko hollered from the bottom of the staircase.

She didn't reply, but nodded her head in the direction of her bedroom door and grunted. After about a minute's worth of Keiko's bellowing, Kyoko lingered over to the stairs, swiped a hand through Keiko's pink mane, and took over.

"Azami Okamoto now I know you can hear me! Get down here in 5 minutes or I'm coming up!"

Azami groaned and tumbled out of bed.

Sauntering over to her full-size mirror, the 15 year-old stripped off the black mini-dress she chose to sleep in, reached in her closet and pulled out a pale brown t-shirt, a purple short-sleeve, along with a long black dress she chose to top her ensemble off with. Before slipping into the fresh wear, Azami paused, biting down on her lip and looked into the mirror. The 2-inch scar on the left side of her face appeared pale, but noticeable.

"_Pale, but still noticeable…"_ she thought as she rubbed her fingers over the mark, gingerly.

After tracing and re-tracing the scratch, Azami took a deep inhale and began to dress. Before heading downstairs, she made sure to brush her close-to-shoulder-length black hair down and cover most of her forehead, along with the embarrassing scratch. Despite hiding her mark, Azami still couldn't fully shield away her family crest, which featured black stripes that covered both halves of her forehead but not the middle. Actually, she'd kind of thought that the crest was pretty cool anyway.

"Alright Azami, I gave you your five minutes…I'm coming up!" her mother warned as her feet began to carry up the steps.

"Alright, hold your temper for a sec, will you?" Azami spoke up bitterly as she kicked her feet into her pair of pale brown sandals.

"Are you getting smart with me?" Kyoko raised an eyebrow, halfway up the stairs.

"No mother." Azami sighed, swinging open her bedroom door and heading for the stairs, which connected directly to her path.

"Come on Azami. I told you _last night_ that we were directly ordered to go see—"

"The Kazekage of the village; yeah, yeah, I know, I know." Azami completes, meeting up with her mother and they both head down.

"At 8:30 in the morning, exactly—it's 8:15 right now Azami." Kyoko sighs, rubbing her hand through her blackening pink hair.

"Whatever, we'll be there on time, I'm sure." The older daughter rolls her pale, frigid blue eyes.

"Ugh, would you guys cut it out?! I'm ready to go so come on!" Keiko interrupts, hopping up and down eagerly.

"Attention prude." Azami murmurs.

"I can hear you! Geez, at least _I _got up on time!" Keiko retorts, sticking her tongue out.

"You act nothing like your age." Azami growls, looking away from her sister.

"I do n—"

"Enough, enough! I don't wanna hear you two bicker this early in the morning! I want you both to be on your best behavior. This is a new environment for us all, so I expect us all to try and adjust. The people of the Sand Village invited us here." Their mother intercepts, shooing both daughters out of the front door.

"I don't see what was wrong with our old town." Azami seers.

"Azami you know with those people after us because of your father, the Land of Waves can't protect us forever. They're too weak." Kyoko explains, glaring at the back of her older daughter's head. It is obvious that she is more than tired of having this conversation with her.

"Like anything's wrong with a change of scenery! I think it's gonna be great, living here! Maybe I'll make some friends who agree that my sister is a total loser." Keiko grins to herself.

"Shut—"

"Keiko."

"Sorry mother." Keiko smiles sheepishly at her mother.

"_She doesn't know a damn thing. Look at us: walking through some village like everything's __**normal**__." _Azami thinks bitterly, bawling up a fist at her side.

And it was true; they did look like a completely normal family. Keiko, who was 14, with a yellow bow tied to her neck, was wearing a fashionable yellow dress to match, along with yellow sandals, and had her dark pink hair tied up, hanging out in the back, with a bang slightly similar to Azami's hanging in her face.

Kyoko, who many had once claimed to look just like Keiko, had her predominately black hair tied up in a ponytail with the same bang as Keiko's, but was wearing a long dark red dress and sandals to match. Azami, the oddball apparently, with her earthy-colored clothing, was the only one of the three wearing her hair down, and didn't appear nearly as bubbly as her sister. It could be however, because Keiko's eyes, like her mother's, were shining brown. The only supremely noticeable things that Azami had taken from her mother were the manic black irises that outlined both of her pupils.

"So after we get outta here, what exactly do we do Mom?" Keiko asks.

"I haven't thought that far ahead yet darling. Just worry about now and think about later as of this moment, ok?" Kyoko sighs as they near closer and closer to the Kazekage's part of the village.

* * *

"…Um, Gaara, the family from the Land of Waves that you've requested has arrived." Kankuro explains quietly, peeping into the doorway of his brother's office.

He looks up at him with the usual deadness in his eyes. But now it's a different kind of deadness—it's the deadness he plans for only those who attempt to harm anyone whom he protects. He doesn't have to say a word, he just nods his head; this signals for Kankuro to tell their sister, Temari, to show the visitors their way in.

"Okay sis." Kankuro turns away, nodding at the blonde-haired girl down the hallway.

Within seconds, Kankuro disappears and Temari takes his place, showing three women behind her the way inside. While Temari takes a stand by her youngest brother, the three female visitors almost immediately kneel down to show their respect.

After resuming their previous stances, the three women wait patiently until they are directly spoken to. For the first 15 minutes, Gaara consults with a man with blue hair and a stiff blue beard, along with his sister. Their conversation is quiet, but the women can sense the seriousness in the room—just as Kyoko and Azami suspected.

"…Kyoko Okamoto, wife of Zinan." The blue-haired man speaks, glancing at the mother carefully.

"That is correct sir." She responds, nodding her head.

"The Okamoto clan: specialties include the manipulation of gravity and many types of psychic weaponry." Temari states, intrigued by her words.

"Correct ma'am." Kyoko nods again.

"Zinan Okamoto; it appears our village has some history with this man. He was one of the 4th Kazekage's right-hand men until he was sent out on a special A-rank mission and was kidnapped." The bearded man speaks again.

"…Good enough, go Kagato." Gaara speaks quieter than the rest, glaring at no one in particular.

"Good day lord Gaara." The man known as Kagato bows, then heads out the only door in the room.

After he's gone, the room takes a pause once again. The leader of the Sand Village looks long and hard at each of the three women, whom he's never seen before. First starting with Kyoko who stands in the middle, then Keiko who's on his right, then Azami, on his left. None of them thinks anything, none of them would dare right now.

"…The Indojin Ryoodo Himawari—the one's supposed to kill you all off. So you're referred here from the Land of Waves. It is because of Zinan that I know your history so well. But Zinan however was a brave and effective shinobi during our bouts with other villages. It is because of that, that this village welcomes you with open arms. It is my duty now to protect you three."

"Thank you, Lord Gaara." Kyoko bows. Her daughters still say nothing but bow as well.

"…Temari, show them their way out." Gaara nods his head in approval.

And with that, Temari leads the three women out of her brother's office, leaving him by himself now.

After they're all out of sight, out of mind, he rests an arm under his chin and exhales. He had much anticipated seeing the Okamoto clan based on what he had known about their family history. What he had expected, he had gotten; Zinan's family. What he had not expected was to be attracted to one of the shinobi's daughters; the one with the reserved eyes.


End file.
